Gabon’s new strongman leader Brice Oligui Nguema said in a speech Friday that the country’s institutions would be “more democratic” following the ouster of Ali Bongo in a coup.

“The dissolution of the institutions” decreed on Wednesday during the coup “is temporary”, he said. “It is a question of reorganising them in order to make them more democratic and more in line with international standards… for human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law.”